A Short Course BookUsing Your Digital CameraA Guide To Great Photographs

Perspective in a Photograph

Click to explore perspective.

A photograph can appear to compress space so that objects appear closer together than you expect. Another photograph of the same scene can seem to expand space so that objects appear farther apart than normal. These apparent distortions in perspective—the appearance of depth in a photograph—are often attributed to the focal length of the lens being used but are actually caused by your distance from the subject.

Changing camera-to-subject distance does change perspective as shown here. As the camera is moved closer to the foreground subject (bottom), the subject appears to increase in size relative to the background. This changing relationship between the size of objects in the foreground and background creates the difference in perspective.

As you move closer and select a focal length that keeps the subject the same size, the angle of view widens and the background diminishes
in size.